With GameStick, game console controllers come full-circle

The hottest tech product in Kickstarter’s Tech section right now is the GameStick, which has already blown past its $100,000 funding goal in the second day of its campaign. Its fast start, software and business model look similar to that of OUTA, which recently shipped its developer version with the consumer products expected to ship in March. GameStick claims it will be right behind it in April. (Sure.)

Whereas OUTA had an attractive industrial design, the GameStick’s is more practical and compact, docking the USB stick-sized “console” into the controller itself. Classic home videogame console aficionados may remember that consoles such as Intellivision and Colecovision had controllers that “docked” (fit, really) inside the consoles. Now, of course, the limiting factor on the size of the controller is ergonomics, but as gesture-based interfaces such as Kinect or that from Leap Motion gain sophistication and popularity, it may be possible to minimize that considerably as well.